living with borderline (BPD)

My twenties…so far

The last few years have been very exciting for me, I’ll try to give an overview:

When I turned twenty, I celebrated by getting a new job (again) that made me unhappy (again). What made me happy though, was that I went for a short holiday with my partner (and yes, that’s the same partner I live with today – the best thing that ever happened to me). A few months went by, I found another job (that wasn’t so bad actually), which I quit in November 2013.

And then I was free for a couple of months: First, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday with everyone who was important to me, which meant that my mum and dad were in the same room for the first time in years – what an event!
Following that, I went to New Zealand for about three months, a thing that I had always wanted to do, number one on my bucket list, the big dream! NZ is an incredible place – although I had expected so much, I was rewarded by finding even more!

When I came back, I moved to a larger city than the one I am from because all my friends and my partner went there to study. I lived in a tiny flat without heating and only one power socket for everything. But I finally found a job that wasn’t about selling clothes that were made by little children or working double-shifts in a bakery: I became a fundraiser for two large NGOs (one of them is my absolute favourite NGO). The job is tough: People not only shout at you but actually attack you and being called an asshole all day long because you want to make a difference doesn’t feel all too great.

Anyway, this year, I got an office job in the very same NGO and it is by far the best job I ever had and will get – as far as I’m concerned, I will stay here for the rest of my life (Yes, I know, borderliners always say so, but it’s been much longer than I had any of my other jobs already)!
Also, I moved in with my partner this year, which is an incredibly huge thing for me, as you might imagine.

So, that’s the overview, what happened BPD-wise?

When I was nineteen, I had a really good time: After moving out, it took some time for me to get stable again, by nineteen, I seriously thought, I was OK and it was over. Yes, I had times where I felt empty or depressed and I occasionally cut my legs but so what…I somehow kept going because I had my goal: New Zealand. I thought, that everything would be glorious there and that my problems would all solve themselves magically. NZ was great, but I couldn’t enjoy it as I wish I had because I was constantly afraid that my partner wouldn’t still be there afterwards. It probably sounds stupid because, after all, I chose to go but I felt I had to do that on my own.

Having a project makes me very happy, so first it was New Zealand, then it was moving into my new flat, getting used to my new job. I didn’t cut for almost a year and I hardly ever had dissociative symptoms! Slowly, problems started again after a while. Panic attacks when people shouted at me at work got worse and worse until I ended up crouching behind a supermarket, crying, hyperventilating and thinking I would die for an hour. Then I realized that NZ hadn’t solved any problems and that I needed help.

I went to an advice center for mental illnesses and got mediaction…lots of scary stuff. The doctor told me that I had a Depression and a Panic Disorder, probably a mild form of BPD as well. Hence, I had to take antidepressants and suppresants. Also, he recommended that I should go to a therapist. Help for finding one wasn’t really offered. I started taking the tablets and felt…nothing. Such a huge amount of greyness, I just wanted my life to end. Apparently, the medication stopped my depressive feelings, but also all the others which was about as empty as I am when BPD really hits me.
What made things worse was that I started having nightmares that I thought were really happening, I would end up completely confused, call my mom to make her tell me what happened…the tablets made me more crazy than I was.

As soon as I had found a therapist, I slowly stopped taking them – fortunately! I think if I had taken them just a few weeks longer, I would actually have commited suicide out of a sudden irrational act. Anyway, therapy: Well, it all went well in the beginning, I had the incredible luck of finding a therapist who still had enough time to taki new clients very quickly and she was very uplifting for me. She talked to me for a very long time and sent me to a colleague to make sure that her diagnosis was the right one: Borderline Personality Disorder. Until then, I had only thought of borderliners as crazy, jealous, arm-cuttinig alcoholics which was an image I couldn’t identify with very well.

Then I read a lot and I realized that all serious problems I’d had in my life fitted the diagnosis: The emptiness, the anger, being out-of body, cutting and fear of being left, suddenly there was a name for it. I wasn’t just peculiar, I actually had a problem. And it was not “just” a depressive episode or a little panic here and there.

In therapy, we talked a lot about childhood experiences, what made me feel bad and so on. But after half a year, I had the feeling that I had told my therapist about every little thing that could have gone wrong in my life, I just didn’t know what else to tell her. Also, it was all so analytic, I am more the pratical type, I wanted solutions, not just long talks about problems!

That was about the time I got my (wonderful) office-job which led to different working times. And suddenly my therapist told me that she didn’t want my therapy to be paid by the insurance because she would get more if I paid it for myself. I told her that I could only afford that if we had less appointments then before and she refused that request. I lost my trust in her and stopped therapy as I didn’t have the impression of getting somewhere that way.

I am grateful that I had my therapist in the toughest time and I’m equally grateful that I got the office job at the right time: Nobody shouts at me and I have many different things to do so that I never get bored. I enjoy the fixed working times and I can take a break whenever I need one. And all that on top of working for this great NGO 🙂

Two months ago I moved in with my partner and I enjoy that so much: No going back and forth between flats or cities as before, it is home – and I never called a place home that way before! This stability helps me a lot.